May, 2014.

Canada.

The next night, neither of us slept. We packed our bags, readied the stolen truck, and wiped down the entire cabin. Although I doubted Bucky's fingerprints were in any government database, I couldn't be sure of my own.

Once everything was cleaned up, Bucky and I snuck out the window for the last time. He shut the pane behind us and ran a spare t-shirt over everything he touched. It was midnight when we left the Nova Scotia house and walked silently across the yards of our unsuspecting neighbors. Bucky threw his backpack into the floor of the truck.

"I need to get rid of this car. You follow me, and I'll leave it somewhere," I told him.

"Any ideas?" he asked. I gave him a sly smile and added my backpack to the truck.

"I've got a full tank of gas and some matches," I brainstormed. "So I've got plenty of ideas."

"That's a terrible idea," Bucky said, reading my mind and seeing fire. I shook my head and left him to go to my rental car.

I slid into the seat and made sure the headlights were turned off before I cranked the engine. It was nice to have a car start so readily, and I knew whatever else Bucky and I might find ourselves riding in might not be so well-behaved. I backed out of the driveway, and Bucky followed closely behind as I drove away from the row of beach houses. I knew where to meet my contact, now I just had to find a place to leave the rental car.

My inspiration came as we passed an empty field covered in weeds and sparse wildflowers on the side of the road. Most of the drive had been thickets of pine trees and the like. It was perfect. I pulled onto the shoulder of the road and through the shallow ditch. Bucky stopped in the ditch and walked the rest of the way behind me as I kept driving.

"I don't think this road gets much traffic," he told me as he approached. "It'll probably take a few days for anyone to notice a car in the middle of a field."

"You're right, but I still want to get rid of my leftover stuff," I said. I popped the trunk, and Bucky watched as I took a spare gun from my purse and tucked it into a pocket. It was a nice and ladylike size, as some of my old friends might have said. My civilian clothes and the suitcase were still in the trunk, and I certainly wouldn't take them with me.

"Won't a fire draw attention?" he asked. I took a knife to my black dress pants and sliced them into strips. "Especially a car sized fire?"

"Nope. Cloudy night, waxing moon, thick trees surrounding this field," I explained shortly. I put the knife away and starting tying the strips of my once very expensive pants together into a rope. "If someone happens to drive by, it would be very noticeable, but we haven't passed a house in ten miles and a car in twenty. Now find me something I can use to shove this into the gas tank."

"I'm starting to think you just want to set a fire," Bucky said. He dutifully bent over, ripped a weed out of the ground, and began ripping all but the most central stems off.

"I always thought EOD was a fun job, but I was called to the aftermath," I replied in a very chipper voice.

"EOD? That's army," Bucky told me. It was more of a question.

"Yeah. Explosive ordinance detonation," I confirmed. I opened the hatch to the gas tank and twisted off the cap. Bucky passed the plant to me, and I used it to stuff what was left of my pants into the tank.

"Were you army?"

"I was," I answered. I looked over what remained of the life I was erasing. A blazer and shoes that weren't all that comfortable. A designer purse I thought was ugly that was filled with paperwork, keys, receipts, and God knows what else. I pulled a book of matches from one of the pockets on my pants and offered them to Bucky. "Would you like to do the honors, Sarge?"

"I don't want to add anything to the list of charges under my name. Go ahead."

I shrugged and began back away from the car, gently tugging the length of my pants rope out from the car. I didn't really know how well they would burn, but I wanted to be in the truck at least by the time the flames might hit the gas.

"This is still a bad idea," Bucky repeated.

"Maybe I do just want to set a fire," I replied. I struck a match and lowered the little flame to the ground. It caught on the frayed edges of the cloth strip and began to burn steadily. It moved slowly down the line, a good fifteen feet long thankfully. "Let's get out of here. A fire won't draw attention, but an explosion sure will."

Bucky began shaking his head slightly as I followed him back to the road. The trail of fire was a dim light by the time I was seated next to Bucky.

"Drive to Halifax. We're catching a boat," I instructed. Bucky restarted the engine and did a wide U-turn.

"How'd you get us on a boat?" he asked after a few quiet minutes. We hadn't heard an explosion yet, and I hoped my makeshift fuse hadn't burnt out.

"That's the first question you're going with?"

"I have more," he warned me. He stayed facing forward but watched me out of the corner of his eye as I repacked a pocket of my backpack.

"I have a friend who owes me a favor," I said simply. "He got us on a boat to Scotland."

"Now I have even more questions," he told me. I waited for the first of them, but he didn't ask any. I went back to checking my gear. It was old habit, but something I found comforting.

"I was a combat medic," I said. "Three tours, roughly two years total. Not counting training, of course."

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

That was our conversation. It was all that needed to be said in order to answer a thousand questions. Two sergeants sat next to each other silently, and that was okay. Bucky kept driving. I kept rearranging my things. I knew by the look on his face I had just gained a little of his trust, and maybe even impressed him.

The rest of the drive was quiet. I had to point Bucky in the right direction as we entered Dartmouth and crossed the harbor to Halifax. There was a shipyard on one shoreline, and our ally was waiting outside the security gate as we approached, leaning against his own beat up old truck. I recognized him vaguely, but he had changed a lot in five years.

"When I get out to talk to him, you scoot over to the passenger seat," I told Bucky.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

He took that answer with only a grumble as I left the truck. I walked across the beam of the headlights and closer to my old friend. He pushed himself away from his ride and stepped forward.

"Long time no see, Richards," he greeted me. "You call when you need a favor. Typical American."

"Oh come on, Ian. This American saved your ass," I replied. I stretched my hand out for Ian to shake, but he pulled into a hug I didn't ask for. Suddenly I found my face shoved into his shoulder. "Typical Canadian."

*